Star Bound
by Stars in Noctem
Summary: Peter had plans of escape; he was finally going to leave the Ravagers behind. But when he's stuck with a fellow Ravager on what was supposed to be his one chance at getting away, he has no choice but to drag her along.


**Chapter I**

Unsurprisingly, the day didn't start well for Peter. "Get up. Your presence is requested on the main bridge."

Opening his eyes, Peter saw a figure standing above him. The bright light shining down from the high ceilings made his eyes sting and water, but after a moment of blinking, his vision began to clear and the figure came into focus. Fierce grey eyes with the intensity of a hurricane peered down at him. If the sight wasn't anything out of the usual, Peter might have flinched at the sudden intrusion of his privacy by the angry, five-foot tall alien woman hovering above him – however, it wasn't, so Peter merely blinked a few more times and tried not to focus on the headache he had at the moment.

"M-morning, gorgeous," he croaked out along with a yawn. His voice sounded scratchy and hoarse. Peter tried to swallow, but his mouth and throat were too dry; it felt as if he had swallowed a handful of cotton balls.

The woman glared down at him with even more ferocity than before. "Do not use your pleasantries with me," she snapped. Strands of white hair fell out of her long braid and stuck to the side of her face, which glistened with a thin layer of sweat; against her lavender colored skin, her pale hair almost glowed. "You're lucky Yondu wants to see you right now…" she hissed.

"Oh, really?" he grinned, sensing some hostility; maybe he could have some fun before Yondu yelled at him – because when Yondu did want to see Peter, it was almost always to yell at him. Luckily for Peter, he knew how to get under her skin pretty well and was going to try to provoke something.

"And why am I so lucky? What would you do to me if Yondu didn't want to see me? You should probably tell me, because otherwise my mind is just going to go farther down into the gutter imagining what you meant." He brought his arms behind his head and crossed his legs, still looking up at the scowling alien woman.

She growled. "It can wait."

"No, I want to know!" Peter pouted.

Narrowing her eyes and clutching her fists, she punched Peter's shoulder. Not hard enough to do any damage, but enough to hurt. "Damn it, Quill! Why can't you for once take something seriously?"

Peter scrunched his nose at the way she said his name with such disdain, as if his name tasted like poison on her tongue; yet it only took a second for him to recover and spread a smile across his face. "Okay, okay. No foreplay, that's fine." He lifted up the blanket, exposing his mostly bare body. The cool air that cycled through the ship caused the hairs on Peter's body to rise. "Join me! I know you're just dying to get some one-on-one action with Star-Lord! Better hurry, though, before all the warm air gets out! And now you can show me everything you want to do to me in detail."

For a moment she blushed and was startled at the sudden display in front of her: Peter laid out on his small bunk, wearing only a pair of boxers with the Thundercats on them and posed in a rather provocative position. She snapped out of it quickly – after being around him for so long, almost nothing surprised her at this point – and she snatched the corner of his blanket and yanked it off the bed before tossing it to the ground.

"You are such a pig!" she yipped.

"And someone's feisty today," Peter retorted, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

She did not find this amusing. "Get up. Now."

"Party pooper," he frowned. "What's the deal anyway? You're more uptight than usual, Hira."

For a moment, Hira didn't respond. Peter watched her carefully as she stepped back and turned her back to him, giving Peter room to rise from his bunk and ready himself. Peter was going to say something else, but Hira's cool voice cut through the silence.

"Can we just go?" she said, her voice now completely calm and collected, showing no hints of the anger she was feeling just moments ago. Peter raised an eyebrow, noticing how Hira now sounded withdrawn. He didn't understand how one second she could be up in his face shaking with anger and then have her back turned and sound as if she were a thousand miles away the next. Peter would never understand how women functioned. _Do aliens even refer to themselves as male or female?_

With a groan, Peter swung his legs over the side of his bunk. He felt a wave of nausea run through him. He gagged once but nothing happened. _Damn hangover…_ Hira looked over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow in question.

"I-I'm fine," Peter huffed, which was a total lie. It felt like his head had been stuck inside a washing machine.

"Are you sure? You do look…_green_." Hira watched him for a moment, as if he were going to drop at any given moment.

"Nah!" He tried to laugh, but his stomach began to churn in agony. "Just give me an hour and some water, I'll be fine."

Hira nodded her head. "I do always forget that you Terrans have a hard time holding down large quantities of alcohol." She walked toward the door, which slid open automatically. "I will be waiting outside."

Once the door closed behind her, Peter stood up and rushed over to the wastebasket in the corner of the room and vomited. When he lifted his head, he frowned. _I can totally handle alcohol! _Peter thought. _Just not when I get into a contest with a Ciegrimite to see who can drink the most Ambrosian Ale. _Shakily, Peter stood back up and began to dress.

As he pulled on his shoes, Peter tried to recall just what had happened last night; most of his thoughts were still fuzzy and a bit jumbled. He remembered going down to Krylor with Kraglin and the others for drinks after completing a deal with some Rajak traders at the Hub, but that was about it. Hell, he didn't even know how he got back to the Mothership; in fact, he was pretty sure that he had taken the Milano down. He would just have to try to remember what happened later on, when he didn't feel like he was going to throw up.

Pulling on his red Ravager coat, Peter stepped out into the hallway and saw Hira waiting for him. When she looked up and saw that he was finally ready, Hira pushed herself off the wall she was leaning against and started to walk away without saying a word.

"Yeesh, you really are in a bad mood," Peter commented as he ran up behind her.

They were dressed similarly in their Ravager uniforms, but each had added their own personalization to what they wore: Peter had a long duster and holsters to hold his two quad blasters; behind his ear was a thin piece of metal that when activated would turn into his helmet. Hira's jacket had a black hood and black shoulder patches, along with the Ravager symbol embroidered on the back; around her neck was a thick, grey scarf; at her hip, she had a handheld sized metal cylinder – Nightbane.

Hira threw Peter a side glance and a small snarl but remained quiet.

"What does Yondu want, anyway?" Peter asked as the two walked down the metal corridor, changing subjects. Hira wasn't going to talk, so he would. If there was anything Peter hated, it was silence. "It doesn't have to do with last night, does it?"

"How should I know?" Hira responded in an aloof tone.

That was it. "Okay, what the hell did I do to make you so pissed?" he asked, throwing his arms in the air. "Because I don't like it when you do all this passive aggressive shit!"

Hira stopped walking right before she reached the end of the hallway; Peter accidentally ran into her, but quickly backed away. "Seriously?" she asked turning around. "You don't know?"

"No! I don't know!" Peter snapped.

"You stood me up."

Peter cocked his head to the side. "Stood you up? What are you talking about?"

Hira looked him straight in the eyes. "We had a mission. After the Rajak deal, we were supposed to go down to Ergonar to pick up the meteorite with the vibranium deposit."

_No,_ thought Peter. That mission wasn't scheduled for another few days. There was no way he missed it; Hira and he had been planning it out for weeks now. Peter brought up his wrist to look at his holo-watch and check the date. When he read the numbers displayed, the color in Peter's face drained.

"Oh, shit," he swore. "I am _so _sorry."

Hira rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you forgot, Peter! Was getting drunk at some sleazy dump of a bar on Krylor really more important to you? It's like you don't even care about anyone else but yourself!"

"That's not true!" he retorted defensively. He cared about lots of people; he just had a really hard time showing it. "If I didn't care, I wouldn't have spent that last few weeks planning that mission out with you! It's just I was so pumped after leaving the Hub, we had 10,000 units transferred over, and Kraglin was already drunk, that I just wanted to celebrate! I was seizing the moment, y'know?"

"More like succumbing to peer pressure_,"_ she huffs.

Okay, she was angry. Peter could understand that. She had every right to be.

"Well, did it go all right?" he asked. He was supposed to have met up with Hira on Ergonar with the Milano; he was supposed to act as the decoy while Hira picked up the meteorite in her own ship.

"Barely!" she yelled. "Without you there the Ergons were all over me! I almost didn't make it out!"

Peter looked to his feet. "Uh, look Hira, I'm really sorry. I honestly forgot, that's all I can say. But I'll make it up to you, I promise." He really did feel bad. Hira was his partner for a lot of missions and had worked with her for most of his time as a Ravager. He felt like such a rookie for doing that to her.

"Forget it. I managed without you." She turned to the door and entered a code into a side panel; the door slid open and she looked back to Peter. "Yondu's inside. You don't want to keep him waiting."

Peter thought about saying more, but he decided that it would be best to just give Hira some space; if he kept pestering her anymore, she might've ripped off his head. When he quickly walked past her, Peter thought he heard Hira mumble something under her breath, but before he could ask he what she said, the door closed, separating the two.

_Well, that went well._

The Mothership's main bridge was bustling as normal. Fellow Ravagers were milling about, reporting to each other, showing off loot and stolen treasures, laughing, fighting, and generally doing whatever they felt like. Everyone there was like family; one big, dysfunctional, criminal family.

Peter spotted Yondu's blue head in an instant; he was sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by a group of red coats. As he approached, Peter was intercepted by a round, stubby man with a scruffy beard and beady eyes. "Quill," he greeted.

"S'up, Horuz," Peter nodded.

"You talk to Hira?" Horuz asked.

Peter frowned. "Who else knows? I mean shit, I just found out a second ago!"

Horuz let out a deep laugh. "Quill, everyone but you knew! You really messed up this time."

"Thanks. Like I didn't realize that already," Peter scowled.

"I haven't actually seen Hira yet, but how's she doing?" asked Horuz.

"Uh, fine I think." Peter said. Peter thought back to a few minutes ago. As far as he could tell there was nothing off about her.

Horuz nodded. "That's good. Kind of surprising, though."

Peter gave the short man a questioning look. "Surprising? What does that mean? What the hell happened last night?"

"She didn't tell you?" Horuz actually looked shocked. "When she making it back to her ship she got intercepted by a few Ergons. She managed to break free and get in her ship, but when she was heading back one of her engines got blasted. She crashed landed in the hangar, totaled her ship. I heard she spent the night in the med-bay."

"Dude, you have to be joking! Please tell me you're joking!" Peter yelled. If that was true, than it was all his fault that it happened. If he had been down there like he was supposed to, then he could have kept the Ergons off her while finished the job. Peter clenched his teeth together in anger. He really messed up this time.

Horuz shook his head in disbelief. "I'm amazed to see that you're still in one piece. I was sure that she was going to rip you apart this morning. Guess she's feeling generous." Peter remained silent. Awkwardly, Horuz patted him on the shoulder. "Well, you should go talk to Yondu. See ya, Quill."

"Horuz," Peter muttered under his breath, waiting for the other man to leave before continuing forward to the center.

Finally, when Peter walked up to the table, the other Ravagers around the table parted, giving Peter room. Seeing Peter, Yondu placed his large glass of Thuvrian beer down with a thud, causing the amber-colored liquid to slush against the rim.

"There you are, Quill!" Yondu bellowed. "Only took you a light year to finally get here."

"Look, Yondu, about last night –"

"Shut up, boy," he interrupted. "I don't care about last night. Even if you majorly screwed up and put a fellow Ravager at risk. Have a seat."

Peter sat across from the Centaurian; the others around the table were silent, too.

"If it's not about last night, what is it?"

"Redemption," Yondu stated plainly. "A contact of mine on Xandar has made a request for us to retrieve a certain item of interest on Morag."

"Morag?" Peter asked. "What the hell could be on Morag? The place is completely underwater, isn't it?

"For the most part, it is," Yondu nodded. "However, every 300 years the sea level lowers and makes a hidden temple accessible."

Peter laughed. "Seriously? Who the hell would store something there if they could only get to it every few centuries? Seems like a stupid hiding place if you ask me."

Yondu raised his hand, signaling for Peter to shut up. "Don't question it. He says there's an orb, located somewhere deep inside the temple room. Because Morag is mostly an underwater planet, none of us know the layout of the place. Your job is to scout the place out first and make sure there aren't any major obstacles. Also to get rid of as many of those pesky Orloni as you can; I hate those things."

Kraglin stepped forward with s grin on his face. "We could always snatch a few good-looking ones and sell them. I hear Orloni fighting is big in the Tartaru star system. We could make some easy money."

Yondu rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Kraglin. Your voice is making my head hurt right now." Kraglin shut his mouth and lowered his head, stepping back in line with the other Ravagers.

"And I'm doing this as punishment, right?" Peter finally asked. "For last night?"

"Like I said, Quill, think of it as redemption." Yondu smirked. "Just make sure your quad blasters are fully charged. There might be some nasty things lurking around other than some carnivorous lizards."

Peter sighed. He deserved this. "So what's this orb do? What makes it so special that a Xandarian broker wants it?"

Yondu shrugged. "Don't know. But he's giving us 200,000 units for the damn thing, so it don't matter if it's a fancy paperweight. We're getting it."

_It has to be something important for 200,000 units, _Peter thought. _You can do a lot with 200,000 units. Maybe this could be my chance…_

"Yeah, all right. I'll contact you after I check the place out. I mean, what's more fun than an ancient underwater planet, right?" Peter laughed. A few others nodded and smiled in agreement, slapping Peter on the back.

"That's the spirit!" one of them had grunted.

However, while Peter was smiling on the outside, his brain was going into overdrive, thinking of as many plans as possible. This was it, he decided. He was going to get out.

Yondu stood from the table and ran his hand across the top of his bald, blue head, wiping the sweat away. "Good to hear. There is one thing, however –"

"What?" Peter asked quickly. There couldn't be any complications if he was actually going to try to pull this off.

With his thumb flicking back and forth across the shaft of his Yaka Arrow, Yondu devilishly grinned at Peter. "You won't be going alone. Hira is already waiting by your ship."

"Seriously? Shouldn't she, I don't know, sit this one out or something? After what Horuz told me, it sounded like she had it pretty rough yesterday. I can do this solo, no problem." Peter was screaming on the inside. With Hira with him, there would be no way he could pull of his plan. He had to be alone.

Yondu laughed. "Sorry, boy, but she asked to tag along. And if she wants to go, well, you owe her one."

Peter sighed. It looked like there was no getting out of this one. He would just have to improvise a bit and hope that luck was on his side that day.

Peter stood and gave everyone around him a quick, mock salute. "Well, I guess I'm off then."

As he turned to leave and head down to the hangar, Kraglin shouted after him. "I'd hurry up, Star-Lord! I don't think you can afford to piss Hira off any more!" The other Ravagers laughed, obviously finding amusement in Peter's predicament; it was never a good thing to be on Hira's bad side, they all knew that well.

When he reached the door, Peter glanced over his shoulder, a smirk on his face. _Laugh all you want now, but next time I see you all will be in Hell._

* * *

**Author's Notes: Chapter one: done! Whoo! That was a lot longer than I intended. What did you all think? I tried to keep Peter in character as much as possible, but I'm worried he deviated away at times. Also because the movie didn't dive too deep into what life was like as a Ravager, I used some creative license for most of the chapter. What did you all think? I really appreciate any kind of constructive criticism or feedback, so please leave some! ****It's always important to know what the readers think!**

**Also, I don't have a beta-reader for this story, so if any errors/mistakes/whatever are spotted, could you please point them out to me? Thanks!**

**-SiN**


End file.
